"Does that offend you?"

A gnat landed on the back of Cehmai's hand. The tiny wings tickled, but

he looked at it carefully. A small gray insect unaware of its danger.

With a puff of breath, he New it into the darkness. The andat waited

silently for an answer.

"It should," Cehmai said at last.

"Perhaps you can work on that."

"Being offended?"

"If you think you should be."

The storm in the back of him mind shifted. The constant thought that was

this thing at his side moved, kicking like a babe in the womb or a

prisoner testing the walls of its cell. Cehmai chuckled.

"You aren't trying to help," he said.

"No," the andat agreed. "Not particularly."

"Did the others understand their lovers? The poets before me?"

"How can I say? They loved women, and were loved by them. They used

women and were used by them. You may have found a way to put me on a

leash, but you're only men."

THE IRONY WAS THAT, HIS WOUND NOT FULLY HEALED, MAATI SPENT MORE time in

the library than he had when he had been playing at scholarship. Only

now, instead of spending his mornings there, he found it a calm place to

retire when the day's work had exhausted him; when the hunt had worn him

thin. It had been fifteen days now since Itani Noygu had walked away

from the palaces and vanished. Fourteen days since the assassin had put

a dagger in Maati's own guts. Thirteen days since the fire in the cages.

He knew now as much as he was likely to know of Itani Noygu, the courier

for House Siyanti, and almost nothing of Otah-kvo. Irani had worked in

the gentleman's trade for nearly eight years. He had lived in the

eastern islands; he was a charming man, decent at his craft if not

expert. He'd had lovers in "Ian-Sadar and tltani, but had broken things

off with both after he started keeping company with a wayhouse keeper in

Udun. His fellows were frankly disbelieving that this could be the rogue

Otah Machi, night-gaunt that haunted the dreams of Machi. But where he

probed and demanded, where he dug and pried, pleaded and coddled and

threatened, there was no sign of Otah-kvo. Where there should have been

secrecy, there was nothing. Where there should have been meetings with

high men in his house, or another house, or somebody, there was nothing.

There should have been conspiracy against his father, his brothers, the

city of his birth. There was nothing.

All of which went to confirm the conclusion that Maati had reached,

bleeding on the paving stones. Otah was not scheming for his father's

chair, had not killed Biitrah, had not hired the assassin to attack him.

And yet Otah was here, or had been. Maati had written to the Daikvo,

outlining what he knew and guessed and only wondered, but he had

received no word hack as yet and might not for several weeks. By which

time, he suspected, the old Khai would be dead. That thought alone tired

him, and it was the library that he turned to for distraction.

He sat back now on one of the thick chairs, slowly unfurling a scroll

with his left hand and furling it again with his right. In the space

between, ancient words stirred. The pale ink formed the letters of the

Empire, and the scroll purported to be an essay by Jaiet Khai-a man

named the Servant of Memory from the great years when the word Khai had

still meant servant. The grammar was formal and antiquated, the tongue

was nothing spoken now. It was unlikely than anyone but a poet would be

able to make sense of it.

'T'here are two types of impossibility in the andat, the man long since

dust had written. The first of these are those thoughts which cannot be

understood. Time and Mind arc examples of this type; mysteries so

profound that even the wise cannot do more than guess at their deepest

structure. These bindings may someday become possible with greater

understanding of the world and our place within it. For this reason they

are of no interest to me. The second type is made up of those thoughts

by their nature impossible to bind, and no greater knowledge shall ever

permit them. Examples of this are Imprecision and Freedom-FromBondage.

Holding Time or Mind would be like holding a mountain in your hands.

Holding Imprecision would be like holding the backs of your hands in

your palms. One of these images may inspire awe, it is true, but the

other is interesting.

"Is there anything I can do for you, Maati-cha?" the librarian asked again.

`.. Thank You, Baarath-cha, but no. I'm quite well."

The librarian took a step forward all the same. His hands seemed to

twitch towards the books and scrolls that Maati had gathered to look

over. The man's smile was fixed, his eyes glassy. In his worst moments,

Maati had considered pretending to catch one of the ancient scrolls on

fire, if only to see whether Baarath's knees would buckle.

"Because, if there was anything ..."

"Nlaati-cha?" The familiar voice of the young poet rang from the front

of the library. Maati turned to see Cehmai stride into the chamber with

a casual pose of welcome to Baarath. He dropped into a chair across from

Maati's own. The librarian was trapped for a moment between the careful

formality he had with Maati and the easy companionship he appeared to

enjoy with Cehmai. He hesitated for a moment, then, frowning, retreated.

"I'm sorry about him," Cehmai said. "He's an ass sometimes, but he is

good at heart."

"If you say so. And what brings you? I thought there was another

celebration of the Khai's daughter making a match."

"A messenger's come from the Dai-kvo," Cehmai said, lowering his voice

so that Baarath, no doubt just behind the corner and listening, might

not make out the words. "He says it's important."

Maati sat up, his belly twingeing a bit. His messages couldn't have

reached the Dai-kvo's village and returned so soon. This had to be

something that had been sent before word of his injury had gone out,

which meant the Dai-kvo had found something, or wished something done,

or ... He noticed Cehmai's expression and paused.

"Is the seal not right?"

"There is no seal," Cehmai said. "There is no letter. The messenger says

he was instructed to only speak the message to you, in private. It was

too important, he said, to be written."

"That seems unlikely," Maati said.

"Doesn't it?"

"Where is he now?"

"They brought him to the poet's house when they heard who had sent him.

I've had him put in a courtyard in the Fourth Palace. A walled one, with